


Savior Complex

by Mousewrights



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Mecha, Multi, Other, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:42:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25025614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mousewrights/pseuds/Mousewrights
Summary: Civilization struggles at the frontier of an unfriendly galaxy bringing together a jaded mech pilot and a consummate survivor bent on mutually assured destruction. Mecha/Sci-fi AU.
Relationships: Abby/Owen, Ellie/Abby, Ellie/Dina
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> I've had writer's block for four years but this seemed like a fun thing to try and do.
> 
> This isn't based in any canonical Gundam/mech/science fiction universe but I've decided to stick with the 'Mobile Suit' language to streamline the awkward process of making up an entire scifi vernacular for this fanfic. I'll try and keep this language consistent.

CHAPTER ONE

The Romulus’ maintained a solid orbit over Jackson. There was nothing on the transport to do besides burn and read the debriefs which she’d done in totality hoping to jog some memory but Jackson gave no impression of significance; a thankless frontier planet three times failed for colonisation. If she let her mind wander she thought she began to hear Mel’s voice just audible through the adjacent bulkhead and there began something like a klaxon siren directly beneath the bridge of her nose; at the dead center of her face. Abby ground the heel of her hand against her nose tip until the cartilage hurt trying to quash the hot, tingling sensation. SLCC’s accommodations never bothered her before six weeks months ago but now the sound of Owen’s laugh through steel made her grind her teeth. 

They couldn’t go this far out without a medic and she knew Mel was taking a risk asking to come. At the very least Abby couldn’t begrudge her father’s education. She knew she shouldn’t begrudge Owen either after he had made good on his word and stepped in to pilot. Isaac might not have sanctioned their expedition otherwise. Abby would have gone alone if it came to it but first Manny, then Jordan and Leah volunteered and by the time Mel threw her support behind it neither Owen or Isaac could say much. 

Sector 42 was still wild land. A few abandoned colonies managed to flourish after their investors pulled out but intel painted a rough picture. Any resources that made it were smuggled or stolen and the people who bought it paid triple. WOLF patrols didn’t waste their time out here and smugglers knew it. Myriad caches and criminals on the lamb were left to bounty hunters with the odd tale of some group or another using it as a staging ground the way they once had. All the while the remnant colonists survive, hunt and don’t give a shit. 

Her comm band lit her bunk with a gentle pulse of blue light, she fit the earpiece.

“What do you want? I have another hour before shift.”

“Yeah? How's that working for you so far?”

“Fuck you.”

“I’m sorry, jeeze.”

She let Owen’s apology crackle in the silence a moment for her own benefit. 

“Really though, did you sleep?

“An hour or two.”

It wasn’t a lie, at two in the morning she slipped out through the living suite connecting the SLCC bunks. There was no point running full lights with this few crew and the alternatively lit gym felt haunted. The dark interims between machines conjured crouching, dessicated figures straight from the nightmares that drove her there. 

She racked weights and went until she couldn’t.

Crawling into bed later- sore, hunched, crusted in dried sweat earned her three nightmare-free hours. If she told him now Owen would give her shit for going without a spotter. 

“Good, come to Comms.”

“Why?”

“I need you to look at something.”

“Owen don’t screw with me.”

“I need your help Abs come on.”

Abby exhaled a deep, reluctant breath before propelling herself out of bed. 

“Thatta girl.”

Comms occupied a forty foot square room behind the bridge that could accommodate an entire squad for debrief. When she got there it was only Owen, his singular form backlit by a variety of signal readouts. He sat at the main console scrubbing through data without anything displayed on the large, upper monitor. There was something feverish about his focus that made her stomach jump.

“What is it?”

“I told Manny to get some sleep- figured I could try some focused deep space scans. Picked something up bouncing around a debris field and I cleaned it up but I needed you to listen to it. To be sure.”

Something about the way he was moving made her feel tricked. It occurred to her he was about to show her something she didn’t want to see but it was already too late, a transmission crackled from the low speaker bar of the comms console. 

At its first syllable she felt her eyes fill unbidden. The chemical grief of her body flooded her with adrenaline at the faint, wavering sound of her father’s voice. 

“-esn’t seem like we’ll be able to restore impulse power. Only -.......- to try and land, if you -........- I have it with me. Follow the light.”

Abby endeavored to clear the lump from her throat without drawing attention to herself, Owen didn’t look at her. The small hairs on the back of his neck were standing up in the monitor glow.

“Is-?”

“Yeah, its him. It’s dad.”

* * *

  
  


Ellie listened to the metronome. 

Whenever there wasn’t music the signal reverted to the metronome, ever present, somehow comforting- most importantly: not silence. It was okay for song-writing though she much preferred the old snippets of country and western that howled through Joel and Tommy’s broadcast shifts, a fact she would die before admitting to either of them. Jackson’s tech was cobbled together from scavenged parts but the perimeter served as a prime example of the efficiency required to survive. Old colony projects littered the sky with scuttled satellites allowing for an unbroken broadcast chain around their small frontier, anything passing between them produced a long, ominous silence. The past four years had seen many such innovations, any method of surveillance  _ seemed _ like a good idea yet Ellie couldn’t help but consider that before Joel’s recent spate of paranoia she hadn’t been obliged to listen to metronomes. Whenever Ellie pointed out to him that the only signal interruption they’d had, a single, woebegone refugee, was less than a threat Joel said something about ‘being a fool every night but one.’ 

On the utmost floor of the reinforced prefab outpost the sun hit the top of pine trees creating patterns through the railing of a toothy, canine maw. In the summer this position was used as a firewatch but at this point in the year autumn storms stopped any danger, filling the forest with a rising scent of wet rot. As she sketched the outline of the shadow against one of the floor planks the signal changed. At first the fumbles and clunks of someone attaching the cans, adjusting the mic, then Dina’s voice.

“Thank goodness Seth’s shift is over, you could put in a little effort right? Now that you’re all in my capable hands this one goes out to anyone out there who might have left camp without telling anyone. Alright, yep, let’s get started.”

Ellie winced, there wasn’t any chance Jesse had left without saying anything too? Maybe to come look for her? Her small radio quickened into a series of wandering guitar riffs. 

_ So, so you think you can tell _

_ Heaven from Hell _

__ It was difficult to get pre-colonisation recordings in decent shape so for those with any sort of private collection the Perimeter Signal was a small point of pride. The sun was beginning to disappear behind the nearby peak and she hitched her pack not wanting to try the return hike with only a flashlight. It wasn’t her intention to cause Dina any worry, rather she’d hoped Joel might understand how serious she was about getting up there. Ten months of running simulations in a cockpit she and Jesse rigged from scrap now seemed like a colossal and naive waste of time. Short of a hull falling, miraculously unbreached, from orbit Joel said there was no way to fix the mobile armor he nicknamed Dollar and apparently no way they could send someone up alone in Tommy’s remaining craft. No matter how many months of simulations they ran.

_ Hot ashes for trees? _

_ Hot air for a cool breeze? _

_ Cold comfort for change? _

It was the same story told over and over: a Punisher class spacecraft caught them off guard on patrol, the two traded blows, the ship was destroyed, damage sustained by Tommy’s fighter and the lack of incoming resources. Whenever she talked about repairing it he cited part costs and the tendency of grifters to sell faulty parts and hop planet before you found out. Most frustrating was his insistence that the ship in question had no reason for being there and wasn’t worth investigating. Whatever explanation he came up with the last thing he wanted to hear from her was Fireflys. 

The trail back to the main settlement sloped down and she had to walk sideways to keep from stumbling. There was no reason she could see for why Joel wouldn’t let her take his Fighter out to at least scout the wreckage. It might not be as ideal in terms of maneuverability but his urging that someone was out there waiting for their guard to drop rang false. Something about it sat wrong with her, a deep unease at the way he wouldn’t meet her eye. Until someone bothered to take a look she couldn’t help but wonder if it had been someone looking for her, someone who knew…

_ How I wish, how I wish- _

_ ………….. _

_ …………. _

Her boots hit the bottom of the trail and stuck there in a moment of frightened comprehension. Each muscle dependent on the next noise, the fact that the song would continue or Dina’s voice would break in but nothing. No metronome, just endless droning silence.

Ellie put her head down and took off at a sprint.

  
  
  


A small group gathered outside the ground station control center engaged in serious discussion. Jesse recognized her distress and broke off from conversation with Earl to intercept her. Over his shoulder Ellie caught Joel’s eye for a brief moment where he stood within the station doorway and broke the connection as if zapped. 

“Do we know what it is?”

“Can’t get a clear scan but it looks like they broke the perimeter near the debris field.”

Ellie’s brow furrowed, “What the hell?”

Jesse shrugged, “Maybe whoever sent that Punisher is finally come calling.”

“Right, only took four years. Yo, Joel!” breezing past Jesse and up onto the concrete porch she blocked the doorway. He already had his hands up in front of him, palms open as if to warn her off.

“I can’t right now Ellie, we need to get a clearer picture of this thing.”

“To figure out which way we should hide? Have you hailed them?”

Joel leaned over one of the readouts, a small black and white screen with a gridded layout and several rotating depictions of space junk.

“If we give up our locations we’re sitting ducks.”

“Only if they’re enemies, if they’re looking for us-”

Joel’s posture changed in a moment and he turned to face her, eyes stormy and voice rising at her apparent lack of understanding.

“Anyone looking for us is an enemy alright? Go ahead and get to the bunker.”

“Fuck no, I’m not a kid I’m staying here.”

“Jesse, will you please get her to the bunker?”

Jesse came up behind her but she jerked away before he could try it.

“Don’t touch me.”

He put his hands up, not moving forward, suing for peace with presence. 

Joel wouldn’t look at her, wasn’t looking at the signal either, rather he kept his eyes down on his hand, fingers spread on the edge of the table. She expected him to say something, maybe yell again, but he didn’t. It pissed her off.

“Fine, I’m going.”

On her way out she stormed past Tommy and banged her shoulder painfully on the door jam. After a beat of silence in the wake of her exit Joel spoke up again, “I’m sorry Jesse but would you mind…”

“No problem.”

Smiling despite the tension of the room Jesse followed Ellie out.

“Maria’s on her way. That seemed like fun.” Tommy selected one of the printed readouts and rotated it like a pinup in an attempt to orient himself. 

“This is serious Tommy.”

“I know, I know. What sort of thing are we looking at?”

“Someone with mobile suits. They’re nosing around that old wreckage but it's just one ship. I can’t figure why they’d be out this far but I doubt it's anything honest.”

Tommy opened his mouth to respond when Jesse hurdled back, panting and came to a halt doubled over beside the two men.

“Sorry Joel, I don’t know where she went.”

* * *

_ -you were here _

_ We're just two lost souls _

_ Swimming in a fish bowl _

“What is that?”

At the edge of visual contact the cockpit interior of Abby’s mobile suit flooded with a mid-chorus guitar swell. The Destroyer class tactical mobile suit she piloted didn’t boast much in terms of communication range. It was bulkier than Manny’s Runner with mounted shoulder cannons and a secondary hydraulics system for CQC advantage. The main loadout supported a long-range pulse rifle but she opted for a scattergun for sweep and clear.

Manny’s voice piqued over the short-range overlapping the music broadcast.

“I think it’s Pink Floyd. Did your dad dig Pink Floyd?”

“More of an Eagles guy. Stay frosty I can’t find a point of origin.”

“I don’t think anything out here is going to pose much of a threat.”

“That’s what we thought last time.”

“Right, I’m an idiot, sorry.”

It wasn’t possible to recognize open space, even the closest scrutiny of her surroundings wouldn’t yield any satisfying answers. The intervening years convinced her that she might somehow feel it when she arrived in the arbitrary coordinates of her father’s death but that felt silly now. Her Destroyer’s high-powered spotlight slid over spinning, drifting asteroids, in search of any indications of old scarring or embedded shrapnel. 

“We’re two clicks out from Leah’s projection. Once we hit it we can spiral out.”

“Heard.”

Manny’s Runner zoomed ahead a safe distance over her right shoulder in equal effort across the upper strata of floating rock. Somewhere out here was enough to continue a broadcast and if that was the case more could have survived: Firefly data, system maps and cache locations; the last and most critical remote intelligence carried by their ranking leader. Along the way her father’s ghost became entangled with what else might be recovered here. 

“You really think, if there was something, it could lead us to them?”

“Not worried Isaac will hear you?”

“Don’t even joke about that.”

She inhaled, exhaled, took a closer look at what might have been a cylindrical scrap of turbine and was dissapointed.

“I don’t know.”

_ Beep. Beep. Beep. _

A red indicator light burst into cacophony on the right side of her controls. The brief warning predicted its invader by seconds, just enough for her to throttle forward in reflex pushing out of the way of the Fighter as it burst up from below. Manny’s Runner peeled left as the incoming craft streaked off and past, disappearing in the many moving shapes of the surrounding rock field. 

But the moment of its passage across her visual sensor seemed to freeze.

Triple engines lit on a two-toned, snub-nose Fighter. Abby shouldered the scattergun.

“Abby wait I think it's hailing-”

Her first shot fragmentized the closest ring of asteroids causing Manny to swear loudly in spanish over the comm. She unloaded the remaining two rounds in the cartridge and the space in front of her spun with thousands of pulverized shards catching the frantic twitch of her searchlight as she tried to discern some single, solid shape.

“Son of a bitch!” She charged the Suit forward through the cloud of granules towards where the fighter vanished. Manny’s distressed voice crackled intermittently over a shortwave at the extreme of its range, “-by…..me girl! P……-ck, there's mo-”

_ I’ll kill you, I’ll fucking kill you. _

At the end of her burst she counter-thrust to hover between two large chunks of spinning black stone. There was no sign of Manny behind her nor any indication of the destination Leah originally plotted for them. Despite her rampage moments before the indifference of space isolated her and she leaned forward towards her console, straining, as if she might hear the Fighter engine across that impossible vacuum. Where was he? Had he been out here this whole time waiting for her? 

_ I’ll find you and kill you, I swear…. _

The interior of her visor was beginning to fog up and her skin itched beneath her flight suit.

_ Beepbeepbeep. _

“Abby! Fucking incoming!”

Manny’s Runner screeched passed her starboard side so close she felt the force drag. A second Mobile Armor Fighter pursued him, a similar build to the first but notably more ragged. A sheet of fresh metal patched a large swath of the crafts central section creating an obvious drag, Abby observed, as it tried to maintain a bead on Manny’s significantly quicker Suit. 

“Shake him.”

“Fuckers tenacious. You got his friend?”

Abby performed a tight pirouette in her stationary position without results.

“Negative, pull him right.”

“What?”

“Bring him towards me and pull him right.”

“Copy.”

From her position she watched Manny try to oblige, the Fighter headed off his first attempt to zag beneath a rock cluster but in his second try the Runner juked and, in response, the Fighter banked revealing the shining plate of new, raw steel. Her Destroyer’s scattergun tore through it like paper. The repair must have been near the fuel line as the Fighter seemed to sputter a moment, jittering like a stalled car before combusting. 

In the collapsing second after her target burst the second Fighter struck her flank with such sudden force that it cracked her helmet against the cockpit's upper control component.

Stars burst across the inside of her visor immediately preceding vomit, alarms with multiple origin points confused her auditory processing. A flash of heat covered the exterior of her visor with soot as some element of her control panel ignited and then self-extinguished. Abby scrabbled at it, wiping away a few desperate streaks in the black to peek out at the Fighter, the foremost portion of its left wing stuck out of her Suit’s right side like an embedded lance. The pilot was using it like a hook, dragging her backwards in space with the full force of its thrusters. Asteroids struck the Suit’s back, denting it with rapid thunderous crunches as the Fighter hauled her further. 

Abby’s ears were ringing. 

_ Fucking kill you, fucking kill you. _

Sweat beaded on her brow mixing with the smell of puke she slammed the throttle and felt their shared progress slow. The temperature was creeping upwards and something was causing her frame to shudder, had the impact done enough damage to cause structural damage? A loud siren from overhead indicated she was losing Suit integrity. 

She jammed the trigger control but the right arm was pinned, nonresponsive. There must have been a fuel line rupture; it didn’t seem like she could push back at all against the smaller craft. Forcing the throttle forward on her right side she heard a seconds long creak of groaning, straining metal before the wing snapped from its main structure. The break was too fast for her concussed mind to compensate for and the unleashed force of her portside rockets spun her violently around.

The green surface of a planet loomed beneath her.

She tried to pull the thrusters back, to fight the increasing downward drag as she watched borders of flame beginning to wing from the edges of her mobile suit. The Destroyer Frame rattled with atmospheric friction, the heads up indicated a leak was burning through her internal oxygen and she had to push forward against gravity to engage the seal. Her peripheral vision blurred around her outstretched hand, the force pushing her further and further back into the padded pilot seat until it squeezed the air out of her lungs with a pathetic ‘ _ puh _ ’. 

It occurred to her to try and find the fighter but an alarm was blaring further and further out, down now towards Jackson.


	2. Prologue

The lead shuttle, a moment ago clearly visible on the monitors, vanished from all collective sensors of the Firefly convoy and Abby’s body flared with panic. 

“Where’d he go?”

Owen toggled through a series of console controls checking frequencies before broadcasting.

“Dr. Anderson can you hear me? We’ve lost visual, please respond.”

This route provided their escape the cover of debris but scrambled communications made this the worst possible scenario. The comm crackled, uninterrupted. Abby’s jaw clenched, her fingertips digging into the back of Owen’s pilot seat to keep from lunging for the communicator. 

It was only a matter of time before the numbers at St. Mary Outpost attracted raiders. Resources were scarce in System 42 and the past few months saw them double or triple the traffic, enough to indicate fuel reserves to anyone paying attention and her father assured her the raiders were always paying attention. When they started picking up more bogeys the past month there was a general agreement that it was time to leave but too late, Abby’s group exited the atmosphere to a perimeter of readied hailfire. Of the seven launched in their first wave four made it into the asteroid belt and not all of them could fly as well as Owen. 

“I lost the rear sensor.”

Abby rushed the back section of the shuttle, struggling through a knot of evacuees all muttering in panic about what was going on. She squeezed past a pallet of supplies to reach the rear portview, trying to spot anything like wreckage where her father just was. Far behind, a craft she recognized was losing altitude, the front portion was venting oxygen amid a swarm of ragged ambushers. Even as she watched the front portion lit and exploded engulfing one or two of the raider crafts in the conflagration. 

“Abby! What do we got?”

“Marina’s shuttle is down, I think they’re pursuing.“

This time the knot made way, she saw several sets of wide frightened eyes.

Owen sat at the controls with his jaw set, eyes straight ahead as she gulped down a mouthful of air.

“You got them?”

“We’re about to find out.” 

Owen throttled the shuttle up causing those not strapped to shout in dismay as they reached for supports and found only the falling bodies of one another. Abby threw an arm around Owen’s headrest and kept her eyes on the forward monitor. 

The upper layer of debris consisted of smaller chunks prompting the sensor to chirp half-heartedly in an attempt to restore signal. Owen’s face reflected the interior lights of the console in a layer of dripping sweat. 

“Got something, got something.”

He indicated an upper corner on the monitor, two crafts in brief exchange: the clunking dark olive hull of the refurbished Punisher, her father’s shuttle and another vessel - a medium, Mobile Armor Fighter in good repair. 

Then a sudden, incomprehensible explosion. 

Panicked screams burst from the rear section as the ship jerked, the controls abandoned. Owen grappled with her, trying to keep her punching, grasping hands away from the flight console. “We gotta go, Abby, I know, I know. But we have to get out of here.”

If she got to the controls- if she could steer towards where it….where he….maybe he was still...

Owen bear-hugged her, pinned her arms to her sides and tried to lift her up off her feet in the cramped space of the flight deck. Someone went for the copilot seat and she kicked them across the jaw. Whoever it was swore in a wet, bloody voice before piling onto her. It didn’t matter, she was strong, she knew she could get them off of her if she thrashed, they wouldn’t expect her to- suddenly Owen pushed her forward using all of her restrained effort to force her face down into the console. The impact filled her mouth with blood.

“ABBY! We’re gonna die! You hear me! It’s done!”

A hand pinned her by the back of her neck squashing her nose painfully into a set of rivets. Her cheeks were wet, already raw with tears grinding into the textured metal that smelled like iron and saline. Shifting she could see the adjacent forward monitor and the other craft now starting a burn, triple engines lit on a two-toned, snub-nose Fighter, its wings sprayed with some insect insignia, boosting beyond the spreading burst of wreckage. Around her voices chattered, boomed and she was released, a close body smelled like Owen but it did not matter. The Mobile Armor kept going, further and further, already too far out.


End file.
